10 Minute Blogging – Blog Mistake Monday’s #1
- December 22nd, 2008
Last week I highlighted a new blog series called “Blog Mistake Monday’s”. Each Monday I plan to highlight a specific blogging mistake that either I or one of you have made while blogging. Since this is the first week we’re running this series, I thought I’d get it started by talking about one of my first mistakes; underestimating the time commitment of successful blogs.
When I first began to journey down the path of blogging I thought it would be quick and easy to build a high quality, high traffic site. Creating a blog is suppose to be easy right? All you have to do is sit down, write a quick 10 minute article and the rest is history. There was little doubt in my mind that I could build a highly successful blog by simply writing a quick post a day as long as it was consistent and focused. This model seemed so easy I didn’t think it would be any problem to manage 10 blogs at once! Needless to say I quickly came back to reality.
Blogging takes time and dedication. Building a successful site and brand is not easy. As I mentioned above, I thought it would be very quick and easy to build a high traffic site; 10 mins and you’re on your way. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that blogging is hard. In fact one of my most popular posts here on AverageGal is “Why I don’t Sleep: Blogging For Money Isn’t Rocket Science!”. Becoming a successful blogger and creating a fun popular site does take time; much more then a 10 minutes. I quickly realized from reading others success stories and through my own trial and error that you get back what you put into your site. If you only put 10 mins into your blog you’re probably only going to get 10 mins back.
Without going into all of the specifics of what it takes to really make a blog take off with traffic, comments, and excitement, I would simply begin with learning from one of my early mistakes. Don’t short change your blog. Give it lots of TLC, spend more then 10 mins daily developing and marketing, and network with your readers and others.
I hope that you found this first edition of “Blog Mistake Monday’s” beneficial and perhaps you can relate. Don’t forget that I’m running a contest about this new blog series from now until the 25th of December and giving away some cool prizes. Also If you want to be spotlighted with a guest post and share one of your blogging mistakes please send me an email with your article: rachel @ averagegal dot com. I’d love to share it next Monday.
Did you underestimate the time dedication of blogging?
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I definitely agree with this point. It takes time to write quality articles, and the whole point of a blog is to have a consistent number of good articles on a daily bases. Then when you want to do multiple daily articles, that time increases even more!!
I personalyl spend an hour or two a day visiting my readers blogs, posting comments, marketing etc, ontop of the time that I already spend writing my articles.
I like to spend a good day or two writing my articles – that way I know I’ve filled my quota for the week, and I can concentrate on marketing/interacting with my readers
I also agree upon this point. Writing 10 minute article is definitely the biggest mistake a blogger can do.
I can only say that you are absolutely correct. I blog about making money (selling online) but in order to get traffic to the blog I spend many hours doing research and marketing the blog. I am doing so without investing money to search engines. I enjoy reading your blog and others, as you have already tested waters I have yet to place my foot near. So, I am very excited to the upcoming post you have on this subject.
Hi Rachel
Your message is right on target. You get what you give. I work things related to my blog and business an average of 11 hours a day, seven days a week, with obviously less time spent on the weekends. But, I do work it every single day.
Cheers!
George
Obviously you need to spend time in writing an article. The more hurried up and half hearted the posting the less interesting it will be.
No doubt you can probably spend 10 minutes writing a blog post if you are good at it but you probably need another 5 to 6 hours a day to market your blog. Thats where the challenge comes in..
I too am surprised by the amount of time required also. But proofing, adding links, pictures, formatting, all that takes time. The “extras” have surprised me with how much time it adds to a blog post.